


Educational Overnight

by zorilleerrant



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Static Shock
Genre: Gen, Kidnapping, Mistaken Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-07 22:37:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11068527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zorilleerrant/pseuds/zorilleerrant
Summary: Written for Static Shock Appreciation Week 2017 - I just wanted more Static and Batman crossovers ok. Virgil dresses up as Batman that's it





	Educational Overnight

It had seemed like a good idea at the time, because how many times did you get to dress up like Batman? Well, that wasn’t the real question. After all, people dressed up like Batman all the time. Hell, Virgil himself had done it a few Halloweens – although that was before he’d met Batman, after which it seemed kind of…weird.

No, it was more the chance to _be_ Batman.

Wait, okay, Virgil was well aware he was not actually Batman. And he was well aware he was a superhero in his own right, thank you, which was not the same one, and also, he had powers, so he was cooler, right? But, still, getting to play around with Batarmor was not an everyday opportunity, even for someone as cool as Virgil. So he’d said yes. It turned out to be a bad idea. Not for the reasons you’re thinking.

Basically, it had gone like this: there was an overnight at Wayne Tech. They were supposed to be simulating being on call, which was always fun, because instead of really being on call, they ‘woke you up’ at 7:30, after which you went through the drill. Educational, yes, interesting, not as much as it seemed like it should be.

To get it done, the entire class was being hosted in some of the suites in the building. That part was nice, anyway. They were meant for business contacts and whoever the Wayne brand was trying to woo at the moment (right now, the public, it seemed), so everything was filled with expensive snacks and Egyptian cotton, and everyone was trying to make a party out of it – after they’d finished their ‘call’ – which presented a perfect opportunity to sneak out.

So, once upon a time, Virgil had assumed he would one day be cool enough to sneak out of a party to go to a better, more interesting party. He hadn’t assumed it would be for this reason. He was still trying to decide whether superheroing was cooler, and he was inclined to believe it was, but, either way, it wasn’t really the same thing he’d been picturing.

Of course, it was pretty cool that Bruce Wayne showed up to talk to him in person. That was something that you couldn’t really say wasn’t as cool as you thought it would be. He someone managed to maintain his mysterious and dramatic demeanor without the suit on at all, which, wow, that was definitely Virgil’s plan once he became a tech mogul.

Anyway, Bruce Wayne – ‘call me Bruce’ – had shown up to ask Virgil a favor.

“Wait, me?” Virgil said. “Why me?”

Bruce Wayne gave him a look. “I need someone I can trust.”

“Why would you trust me? I’m just some high school student,” Virgil said.

Bruce Wayne narrowed his eyes. “You’re Static, kid. You know it. I know it. Don’t play around here. I don’t have time to waste.”

“Uh,” Virgil said, because he couldn’t really think of any way to protest.

“What, why would you think that?” Richie managed, having walked in on the conversation just in time to save Virgil. Sort of.

Bruce Wayne held up his hands to his face, simulating, well, bat ears, was what they had to figure once they had all the information. “I’m the world’s greatest detective.”

“Oh,” Richie said.

“Oh,” Virgil said, with a little more surprise.

“ _Oh_ ,” Richie said, again, “you’re _Batman_.”

“Say it loud enough for the whole building to hear, won’t you, Richie,” Virgil said, and the two glared at each other for a minute.

“It’s fine,” Bruce Wayne said, “you can play Robin.”

“What?” Richie asked.

“The favor,” Bruce Wayne said, “the favor I’m asking you. I mentioned a favor? I want you to show up upstairs around, say, ten. Batman and Robin.”

“That’s doable,” Richie said, enthusiastically.

“One problem,” Virgil said, as Bruce Wayne nodded and made to leave.

“Yes?” Bruce Wayne asked.

Virgil gestured to his face.

Bruce Wayne nodded sharply. “Shouldn’t be a problem. New suit – prototype suit, so be careful not to break it – covers your whole face. I’ll drop it off in a bit.”

Which was how Virgil had found himself wearing a whole body suit with some bat shaped wing-looking parts and some sort-of bat-looking ears, and a lot of really impressive technology embedded in it. It was also how Richie had found himself in the bathroom being told to stop being such a baby about his hair, while it got dyed so he would better resemble Robin, at least according to the most recent newspaper photo Frieda had provided.

Richie’s suit was less interesting. Oh, the two of them still wanted to take it apart, because there was a lot of stuff in there that they’d never seen before, but it wasn’t the technological marvel the prototype suit was. It _was_ much more brightly colored.

It also had extremely short pants that Richie kept trying to tug lower.

“How does Robin wear these, even,” Richie asked, trying to adjust his costume again.

“I don’t know, he’s probably just used to it,” Virgil said, “can you stop acting so uncomfortable in them? People will know you’re not him.”

“Okay, that’s true,” Richie said, taking a series of deep breaths. “Channeling Robin. Channeling Robin. I’m Robin. I like wearing booty shorts and weirdly shaped shoes! I’m comfortable in my costume, because I’m a performing. I’m Robin. I like being…noticed?”

“That’s probably it,” Virgil agreed.

Richie nodded and shook himself. “Okay. Yes. I can act. I’ll be Robin.”

“And I’ll be Batman,” Virgil said, and abruptly stopped talking as his voice went deep and echoey.

“Whoa,” they said, in unison, although Virgil’s was much deeper.

“I’m Batman,” he said, voice still deep.

“You sound exactly like him,” Richie said, “that’s eerie.”

“Yes,” Virgil agreed, “eerie, like my preternatural ability to find…justice.”

They managed to stop giggling long enough to get to the party.

The party was not the thing that went wrong.

The party itself was – well, opulent seemed a little bland. The decorations alone cost more than normal people made in a lifetime, and Virgil was starting to get annoyed at this when the Center was barely scraping by. He was also getting annoyed that the mask had to stay on the whole time, and that the whole point was that the mask stayed on the whole time, because he really wanted to try some of the buffet.

“It’s really good,” Richie assured him, trying yet another item.

Virgil tried to look stoic and badass in his Batsuit. It worked, but he was still jealous over the food – he surveyed the room, instead.

“Don’t worry,” Richie assured him, patting his arm, “I’ll save some of it for you.”

Anyway, there wasn’t anyone suspicious, or at least neither Virgil nor the suit (which was hooked into the Batcomputer, everything was named after bats, Static had to start doing that) noticed anything off about anyone. Virgil read off the suit’s prompter, but didn’t really pay attention to what he was saying. It wasn’t interesting, anyway, it was mostly some sales pitch or another, but it did come out in that weird, deep, extremely mysterious sounding voice.

Virgil had tried that out once or twice on his own, but the only thing it seemed to do was make him sound like he had a cold, and sometimes make his voice crack.

Anyway, he got introduced by Bruce Wayne, stood on stage while the man gave a speech then shook a bunch of hands. After that, he and ‘Robin’ were free to explore the party, which was weird, because no one else was in costume. Well, the waiters all had short capes on, but mostly people were just in tuxes and gowns and it was all very boring and kind of pretentious, and made Virgil worry about prom. Richie seemed to find it funny, mostly.

A little while later, the Batcomputer declared that it was time to leave, and suggested Virgil feign a crime.

“A crime!” he gasped, immediately, but then kind of regretted it, because that didn’t sound that dramatic at all, not even in the Batvoice.

“What?” Richie said, “where?”

“Injustice lurks in the heart of Gotham,” Virgil said, and that one was a little bit more on the mark, “we must away!”

“Yes,” agreed Richie, following Virgil to some door neither of them recognized, “for the protection of the citizens of our fair city!”

This was not the part that went wrong; it was the right door, and it was easy enough to find. Anyway, the door seemed to lead to roof access. The stairs were a lot uglier that the main staircase they’d had to make an entrance down, but they also seemed newer, and in pretty good shape. Virgil wondered how often Batman had to get from the ballroom to the roof.

They stood there for a while, wondering how they were getting back to their room, but it was actually a really nice view of the Gotham cityscape, so they weren’t in as much of a rush as they could have been.

“I think that went pretty well,” Virgil said.

“Yeah,” Richie agreed, handing Virgil a sandwich. “That was actually kind of fun. I don’t know if I want to do it again, or at least not in something this cold, but it was kind of fun.”

Virgil tipped his mask up to eat the sandwich. It wasn’t as good as it looked, and he felt kind of disappointed in the whole buffet. It was like fancy parties wanted the food to look good instead of taste good – but, actually, that was pretty apt. All style, no substance.

He pulled his mask back down, and tried to figure out how to launch his grappling hook.

That was when everything went wrong.

In this circumstance ‘everything’ was not a lot. It was just that the chaperones had threatened to do room checks, so Richie and Virgil were going to have to be back before that happened, or they’d probably get suspended. The problem was, Richie couldn’t do that just now, because while Virgil had been on the other side of the building testing out grappling hooks, someone had taken Richie and left some sort of ransom note in his place.

 _Where the roses weep and the angels sleep we have taken him_ , the note read.

“It would really help if I knew anything about Gotham,” Virgil said to himself.

The suit brought up a map of the city.

“That’s less helpful than you think, Batcomputer,” Virgil said. “I mean, maybe if you could highlight the graveyards for me. I’m pretty sure this is a graveyard.”

Several parts of the map lit up in green.

“Uh, okay,” Virgil said, “we’re probably just picking one at random, then.”

The suit could fly. Bruce Wayne had made that very clear, to both Virgil and to the general public, when he’d unveiled Batman’s new suit. When Virgil tried to turn on the thrusters, though, he almost flew himself back into the roof, and he decided it was probably easier to just fly himself. After all, most of the suit was made of metal.

It was a lot more exhausting than his usual method, though.

Flying a circuitous route through the city, it didn’t take him long to run into where they’d taken Richie, which was only about halfway through the list. Virgil was pretty pleased. He’d thought for sure it would have been the very last one.

“Seem familiar, _Bruce_?” the villain said, with a cackle.

“Wait, Bruce Wayne?” Virgil said, looking down at the graves, which were kind of obvious in retrospect, and maybe he should’ve tried this park first.

“What? Yes. What other Bruce?” the villain huffed.

“Bruce Wayne’s still in Wayne Tower right now, having a party,” Virgil said.

“Thank you!” Richie said, “that’s what I’ve been trying to tell him for the last hour.”

“What?” said the villain. “That’s – that’s not. Okay, fine, who are you then?”

“Uh,” said Virgil, “I’m Batman.”

He was very pleased that his modulated voice managed to sound deep and mysterious while also conveying how annoyed and unimpressed he was with this guy.

“Well, if you – he – okay, I’m going to check this, and if you’re lying,” the villain said, but just disappeared for a minute instead of adding a threat.

Virgil had Richie untied and halfway into a makeshift harness (Richie had injured his leg in the kidnapping) by the time the villain came back.

“Okay, so it looks like you’re – hey, what? No. Stop that, that’s against the rules,” he said, and then a giant prop cage descended around the two of them. “Okay. That’s better.”

“What,” said Richie, in a whisper, “the hell is going on?”

“I think,” replied Virgil, just as quietly, because the suit seemed to know what he wanted, “that Batman’s villains make less sense than ours.”

“No doubt,” Richie said. “Can you just…move the cage?”

“Uh,” Virgil said, “not without blowing our cover?”

“Right,” Richie said. “Maybe we should…just stay? He doesn’t seem that dangerous. I mean, the whole time I’ve been here, he’s just been monologuing.”

“Okay,” the villain said, “okay, okay, fucking – okay. Fine. Riddle me this, Batman. What runs, but never walks, babbles, but –”

“That’s a river,” Virgil said, “that’s…actually one everyone knows.”

“Look,” the villain said, stomping his foot, “there was a whole set up here, I was sure you were Bruce Wayne, and it would’ve been really – enlightening, it would’ve showed you a whole new perspective, I didn’t – I didn’t plan for this, okay.”

“A new perspective on what?” Virgil asked Richie.

“I don’t know,” Richie said, “he wouldn’t say.”

“A new _perspective_ ,” the villain said, grabbing the oversized iron bars and pressing his face between them, “on the plight faced by the poor and disenfranchised.”

“But Batman,” Virgil said, then cleared his throat, “I mean, the Batman, I mean, the Goddamn Batman…always helps the poor and disenfranchised?”

“What?” said the villain, “no.”

“Uh, yes,” Virgil said. “I mean, aside from supervillain attacks, which, obviously kind of have to take precedence.”

“Well, obviously,” the villain said. “Well, not mine, I’m helping.”

“Hey, how about you riddle me this,” Virgil said, “what lives in large colonies, usually eats fruit or nectar or small insects, and constantly fights government corruption?”

“Wait, what?” the villain said, “no, I ask the riddles.”

“You should probably ask a riddle, then,” Richie said.

“Okay, god, give me a minute to think,” the villain said. “Oh, okay, I have a good one. Okay, who likes to _hog_ more than their fair share and oppress the lower classes?”

“Cops,” Virgil and Richie said, in unison.

“What? No.” The villain shook his head. “The answer was supposed to be ‘the bourgeois pigs’, you lose – oh, you mean, like, pigs, like cops, okay, no, that works out, actually.”

“It really depends on what they’re hogging,” Richie said.

Virgil nodded. “Yeah, if you’re talking about, oh, wealth, resources, versus, say, media attention and public outcry.”

“Oh,” the villain said, “oh, yeah, right. That makes sense. Are you sure I can’t convince you that you could be doing a bunch of philanthropy with your money?”

“Uh, I don’t have that much money,” Virgil said.

The villain sighed. “This really would’ve worked a lot better on Bruce Wayne.”

“You know he’s at a charity event right now,” Richie said.

“Yeah, but not, like, a good one,” the villain said.

Virgil shared a glance with Richie. “Well, it’s for improving conditions in Arkham, that seems like his pet project, I think that’s pretty worthy.”

“Arkham, really?” the villain asked.

“Is that…bad?” Virgil asked.

The villain threw up his hands. “That’s what I’ve been saying in the first place! To everyone! To you, to the public, what does everyone think all this was about?”

“Bro, I don’t think anyone knows,” Richie said.

The villain sighed, clicking something, and the cage disappeared from around them. “I don’t – I just don’t even – go. Just go. We can fight again a different time, just go.”

Virgil didn’t need to be told twice. He finished the rope harness, tying it more carefully this time, and Richie grabbed him around the neck. He wasn’t very careful with where either of them put their feet, and Virgil figured this might have been more of a problem if any of the rocket boosters were actually on, plus, also, he might have run out of fuel by now.

They got back to Wayne Tower just fine. They got back to their room just fine, too. And it turned out the chaperones hadn’t bothered to do lights out or anything – the party was even still going on, although mostly that just meant people were sleeping in one of the living room areas with music on as loud as it would go.

The problem wasn’t that. The problem was, after they’d climbed in the window, but before they’d managed to change, one of the school photographers had managed to snap a picture of Daisy talking to the two of them, and now the entire school was convinced that Daisy somehow knew Batman. It was the front page of the school paper, and it was going to be hard to find a way out of that one. It wasn’t like Daisy could tell them _why_ she was talking to ‘Batman’.


End file.
